


Chicken Soup for the Soul

by coconutcluster



Category: Buzzfeed Hotdaga, Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Hotdaga
Genre: Angst, But it was requested, Chicken Soup, M/M, Sort Of, and i am no coward, i hate myself for writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 19:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coconutcluster/pseuds/coconutcluster
Summary: Mike reflects in his room aboard the Oniθn, only to be interrupted by a familiar face.





	Chicken Soup for the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.

  White walls always bothered him.

  Mike was far too used to the pale white walls of the old ships, where the only color that reached his eyes were the buttons - all red, red, red - and the fragmented rainbow of stars through the windows, so close and yet always a pane of glass away. They looked liked fireflies, if you squinted just right, free in the black vacuum that surrounded them; they were free, but Mike always had those white walls. 

  Their silvery color brought an odd wave of emotion to his head whenever they appeared behind his eyelids - he’d tried to stay far away from the very idea of them since then, and yet here he was, situated stoically on a too-fluffy bed in a titanium white cabin in the middle of some godforsaken hamburger space resort. 

  He knew, from the moment they’d stepped foot (well, maybe not foot, but that’s not important) on the metallic ground of the station that they’d really done it for themselves. Welden-whatever-his-name-was was too cheery, too warm and welcoming, too  _ everything _ at once for the trio as they had exited the Minestrone. And then, of course, they were chill, and none of it mattered.

   Except that it  _ did  _ matter. They’d been knocked off course- their mission had been compromised, and Mike truly didn’t know how to remedy their situation in time. The dark master had been planning for so long already, and Mike couldn’t even get his crew out of a glorified hotel.

  That noxious…  _ chill  _ chemical still lingered in a part of his mind; it whispered to him as he fumed,  _ go back to the pool! Lie down! Rest a bit, everything’s great here!  _ It ticked him off to have even existed in the first place, but what ticked him off even more was that a part of him wanted to listen to it. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up to music and warmth and a nice view that wasn’t from the six-inch thick glass of the Minestrone. He wanted to pretend everything was fine, that everything was  _ going  _ to be fine, with the crew, with the dark master situation, with-

  Mike took a deep breath and closed his eyes, pushing that train of thought from his mind before it could take off. 

  The cabin was warm, at least. Too often he forgot how unforgiving space could be, from the icy nothingness in the Minestrone to the thick, humid air of Tomat0, and the inbetween of Oni θ n was a relief, albeit a reluctant one. He didn’t dare leave the room, though - it was the only place that didn’t seem to swim with the weird gas that lulled his worries away. 

  A knock sounded at his door.

  “Come in,” he called. Something in his core twisted as soon as the door opened, as if his subconscious knew who was behind it before anything else in him did. 

  “Ernesto.” 

  The quiet figure in his peripheral stilled in the doorway, feathers burnt orange against the pallor of the walls. “Mike.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Mike said, his eyes still trained carefully on the window across the room. “You’re not an egg.”

  “You’re not dead.”

  A bitter laugh escaped him before he could help it. “I didn’t think it ever circulated that I was?”

  “Jobblet said a group of invaders crashed. He told me all but one died- Maizey, I mean.” The ruffling of Goondis’ feathers pierced the buzzing air, brief but heavy with something that his voice didn’t convey. ”I connected the dots at the pool earlier.”

  Mike hummed to himself for a moment, mulling over it all. “You sound enthused.” 

  “Can you blame me?”

  Ouch. “Why are you here, Goondis?” 

  Goondis didn’t speak at first. Mike finally glanced over - the chicken seemed deep in thought, eyes glazed over before he started again. 

  “Maizey needed help,” he sighed. “She wanted to find her friends; I didn’t realize that included you.”

  Mike didn’t answer. 

  “Why are  _ you  _ here, Mike?”

  “Maizey’s wife was… killed. Sort of.” Goondis frowned, but Mike just moved past it, his patience and energy far too low to explain at the moment. “I could help. Thought I would. I didn’t have anything better to do, anyway.”

  “So now you want to save people?”

  The feeling in his core burned like magma - he knew he recognized that strain in Goondis’ voice, after all these years. “Goondis-”

  “Don’t  _ Goondis  _ me,” the bird snapped; it occurred to Mike suddenly that anyone in the halls could hear them right then. It also occurred to him that he didn’t care; he was finally talking to him, to his best friend and his worst enemy and his biggest loss all in one, and he couldn’t care less about anyone else on this hellhole station, not in that single moment. “You killed innocent civilians, Mike. I don’t know if you thought however-many-years could fix that, but it can’t, because those civilians are  _ still dead _ ! You’re still here, but they’ll never be here again, because of you. Running away coudn’t fix it back then; it won’t fix any of it now.”

  His vision blurred, the words swimming through his head. “Would you have rathered I die with them?”

  “I’d have rathered no one died!”

  “I didn’t have a choice-”

  “You had all the choices,” Goondis spat. “I didn’t kill anyone - that was my choice.”

  “We  _ both  _ killed the pope, Goondis.”

  “ _ You know what I mean _ .”

  “I’m sorry.” 

  The room fell silent - Mike was acutely aware of the heavy breathing from both of them, their emotions static in the air, heavy and laden with something hollow and heavy all the same. Those stupid white walls jumped out at his eyes again, and he was brought back to that moment on the Minestrone so many years ago, his focus on those buttons (red, red, all red and blinking) and the shouting still echoes in his mind. They were here, they were now, and no matter how Mike tried, he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t change that day.

  “What?” Goondis breathed. 

  “I’m  _ sorry _ , Goondis,” Mike repeated, his voice trembling in its low octave. “I never meant to- I didn’t  _ want  _ to hurt anyone; not those citizens, not those around them, not  _ you _ . It was an impulse decision - I thought it would help, but it didn’t, and I think every waking moment about everything else I could have done instead but it  _ doesn’t do anything _ . I can’t change it. I want to, I do, so much - more than anything - but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  And he let out a breath. 

  Everything he’d felt for so long, since Goondis stepped off the ship and refused to reboard, since Mike closed the hatch and vowed that he wouldn’t look back, since every day onwards, had been spoken aloud, and his mind was alleviated as if a migraine had finally subsided. 

  “Mike.”

  He looked over at Goondis still in the doorway, and though his vision was blurred, he saw the bird smile.

  “It’s good to see you, too.”


End file.
